


a moment in the distance

by sunkiss



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Descriptions of Anxiety, Gen, I think that’s it, Not Beta Read, We Die Like Men, based off of my experience from my first season of xc, brief mentions of puking, character development i think idk, i’m just projecting onto him, no it is not the same thing as track and field, this is a cross country running au, yamaguchi hates running in this, yes it’s a sport
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:22:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28217661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkiss/pseuds/sunkiss
Summary: The first couple of meets didn't have much change in time. It only dropped by margins of thirty seconds to a minute and twenty. It wasn't until halfway through the season Tadashi had that special moment. It was at his rival school's home trail and it was only between them and two other schools. A relatively small race but his time had dropped by five, almost six minutes. That was the moment that he started to get that insatiable hunger to run and improve his time as fast as he could.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	a moment in the distance

Long distance running was hard.

That was the first thing Tadashi had learned after being guilt tripped and mildly coerced by his father to join his high school's cross country team after not making the cut for volleyball–albiet reluctant pleads of not wanting to fell on deaf ears and a stubborn will. 

There had been multiple discussions (more like arguments) leading up to the morning of the trial run. He absolutely hated running more than he had to, and if he were to join the cross country team, he was going to have to run at least ten miles in a single day depending on the kind of training. That was way more than he was used to, and resented the fact that despite him desperately not wanting to, he was going to join the team anyway if only to be a dutiful son and not let his father be disappointed in him. 

So the morning of the trial run he had woken up half an hour before his alarm was due to ring and dressed in the most suitable clothes for running that he owned. It really was just a normal t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. He hadn't exactly gotten around to buying actual workout clothes. After all, he still had to do the trial run and ‘decide’ if he was going to join.

After that he had slowly eaten breakfast, mulling over how bad a morning it was about to be, humming only when necessary when his father asked him questions about how he slept and if he was ready and excited for this morning. Tadashi, with dread sinking to the pit of his stomach and anxiety threatening to crush his lungs, feigned a smiled and nodded. 

It wasn't long after that when they had set off towards the school. The run was supposed to start at eight and hopefully be done by ten. Current members and newcomers were welcome to run; however they needed to be at least fifteen minutes early so they could be introduced and stretch properly. The whole drive Tadashi had to keep himself from bouncing his leg in nervousness, but picked at the skin around his nails until they were raw in retribution for the effort. 

His father had promptly left after meeting the coach which lead to Tadashi awkwardly standing around waiting for anyone else to show up. Unfortunately no one else did besides two of the current members, one of which would be his captain. So they set off on the run. It was long and hard for only being five miles round trip, and with the early August sun glaring down on them and making the already humid heat feel hotter, and the air thicker, it was miserable. 

He had barely kept up and felt horrible when they constantly slowed the pace for his sake. Shame wrapped it's coils around his heart. His first impression to his captain and coach was of how much of a novice he was at long distance and how bad he was at it.

The entire time they were running he couldn't help but wish that he had never come in the first place. 

When they had gotten back to the school the coach had told them that conditioning for the season started the next day at seven in the morning at the beach. Tadashi tiredly thanked the coach and told him that he'd be there. He had to pinch his arm to keep himself from tearing up at the thought of running again.

He wished he had made it onto the volleyball team.

After four weeks of grueling daily runs with the team the first meet of the season appeared. It was an invitational meet that took place the Saturday before the new school year opened in September. None of the schools from his district came besides them, since it was their home trail that was being used. They were to race against schools from the next county over and his team had to have been the smallest out of all of them.

Anxiety had taken over his body and Tadashi felt that he was going to vomit at any moment. He was the only freshman and newest addition to the team and this was his first race. He didn't understand how his upperclassmen were so calm and relaxed while warming up. The boy couldn't even bring himself to genuinely react to his teammates' jokes and witty banter. 

He honestly didn't know what to expect from a meet, but being lined up at the start and feeling that bundle of nerves grow at each slowly passing second until the cap gun was fired and jolting into a sprint, being jostled by arms and hit by shoes kicking up rocks, and feeling like there was no air, nowhere to move in the mass of bodies surrounding him until they passed the gate and thinned out into smaller groups, wasn't it. 

Since he was still such a slow runner he had already fallen back to the last of the stragglers in the back. He marked and kept pace with them for most of the first half of the race. By the time he had started the second lap around the course two of his teammates had already finished. One was wearing the bronze medal, signifying that they'd placed third. He wouldn’t let himself look at the giant clock. Seeing his time would only make the burning in his legs and lungs worse than it was. 

He could hear the yells of _pick up your pace Yamaguchi!_ and _you’re almost done! pace with the runner ahead of you! you got this Yamaguchi!_ through the din of the other supporters. Tadashi could clearly see that the runner ahead of him was more than five hundred meters away. There was no way he was going to be able to catch up.

His entire body felt like it was on fire. Everything hurt. He was tired. Rounding the bend that led into the curvy path through the trees, Tadashi could feel his legs start to feel like jelly, like they could collapse at any moment, until the sharp and searing pain of shin splints took hold. Each step had felt like lightning striking his legs. Tears pricked at the corners his eyes. 

Before he knew it, though it felt like a lifetime, the final leg of the meet was upon him. The field stretched out in front of him and he used the last of his energy on pushing himself at least a tiny bit faster. He was the last one to cross the finish line. His time was thirty-seven minutes and forty-three seconds. His first official time and he was barely off the forty minute mark while his teammates were anywhere between fifteen to twenty one minutes.

He couldn't look any of them in the eyes as his captain handed him a sports drink, telling him that he did well. Tadashi was sure his captain didn't actually believe that. Shame, embarrassment, and doubt rooted itself into his mind.

The first semester of school started and Yamaguchi settled in without much of a problem. He paid attention in all of his classes, made a couple of new friends outside of the ones he already knew from middle school, and went to practice after the final bell rang every day. After practice he would go home and shower, eat, do his chores, and then do homework and study until the early morning, only to wake up a few hours later, get ready for school, rinse and repeat.

It was a routine that had been hard to get accustomed to but eventually became easier as the shock of actually being in high school wore off. He had even begun to look forward to going to school even if he had hellish practices in the blazing heat every day. 

Though he couldn't say that he absolutely hated practice. The trails they ran grew on him and he found out which track exercises he enjoyed and the ones he absolutely couldn't stand. His team also made it more bearable. Without them he probably wouldn't have survived. Without them, he probably wouldn't push himself to get better and faster. 

The memory of his first race time hung heavy over him and he didn't want to be the slowest on the team. He wanted to be faster so he wouldn't feel humiliated again. So when his team cut corners and took shortcuts, he did the workout correctly and ran a little harder everyday. He still hated running with a fiery red passion but he learned to appreciate it with the finer things. He got a wonderful family out of the team, he was able to run by beautiful scenery, he was able to slowly see improvements and learned how to take care of his body better, and how to run better.

But with practice comes meets. They had a race every Wednesday for the next three months - all the way until mid November. 

The first couple of meets didn't have much change in time. It only dropped by margins of thirty seconds to a minute and twenty. It wasn't until halfway through the season Tadashi had that special moment. It was at his rival school's home trail and it was only between them and two other schools. A relatively small race but his time had dropped by five, almost six minutes. That was the moment that he started to get that insatiable hunger to run and improve his time as fast as he could. 

Even before that though he had felt the pressure to improve. His teammates were still getting faster even though they occasionally cut corners. They were still in the front of the pack at every race. He had set a goal for the time he would try to drop at a meet, and if it wasn't reached, he would dwell on it and think about how he was a failure as a runner and how he shouldn't even be on the team. 

He often thought he wasn't good enough. 

Those thoughts and self-expectations became worse after that meet. After he dropped so much time in that race, he knew that he could perform so much better and run so much faster. So why couldn't he just meet the goal every time!?

Eventually he figured out how to turn those negative thoughts into motivation. One day at practice it was like a flip had switched. He disregarded any of the positive encouragement he got unless it was for his form, and thought up of any and all negative things he's told himself the entire season and it made him run better. He didn't understand why since it didn't do that before, but he took it nonetheless. 

So he pushed himself beyond his limits during practice. He ran and ran until he puked and then kept on running. He was steadily dropping times at every meet now and his goals were finally being reached.

No more was the boy who was ashamed of his time. No more was the boy who dreaded going to practice or running (unless they did the latter sprints on the track). No more was the boy that let his anxieties and doubt hold him back, but instead let them push him forward.

At one point he had the fleeting thought that he might have started to love running.

Regionals. The final meet of the season. The day had seemed to have come quicker than Tadashi had expected. Coach had let the team have a day of rest before it, only in exchange for them to have a team dinner at a restaurant. It had been a fun night and helped everyone relax and get into the right mindset for the meet. The morning of it though, the team had been recognised and wished the best of luck in the morning announcements right before they had left for the hour and a half bus ride to the course.

They would be missing an entire day of school for this meet and wouldn’t get back until the late evening. The ride there was abnormally quiet. Tadashi could feel the tension and nervousness in the air. He didn’t blame them, he was feeling the same. The course they were to be running apparently was the hardest to beat a best time with. It consisted of three large incline hills, gravel roads, a grassy field path with almost unseeable holes littering the ground, and of course the final leg had three sharp turns and then the straightaway.

Schools from three different districts were going to be running. It was a large event and Tadashi couldn't help his nerves from seeing so many people. But it had immediately faded to the back of his mind when his race started. The anxiety inducing buildup to the cap gun now gave him the much needed push to get towards the front of the pack before they crowded into the small gravel road. 

Tadashi marked and paced and ran past runners. He knew that the hardest part of the race–the part that usually hurt running times the most–was the halfway mark, so he ran just a little bit faster than his usual pace to give him the extra time. He wanted to at least try to beat his time even though he knew it was almost impossible, especially for a newer runner like him. But he tried. And even though his legs were aching from the faster pace, he had managed a small head start. 

He pushed his legs harder than he had before running up and down the steep slopes of the hills, even passing a large group of runners that had slowed down on the last one and marked the runner ahead of them. The once daunting five hundred meters from his first race didn't matter now. He caught up right as they hit the first sharp turn. It became a battle of speed between the two of them. They ran by three other runners and with competitive glances at each other, they turned out of the last turn and broke into a sprint as soon as they hit the straightaway. 

They were neck and neck. The cheers and screams from the large spectating crowd grew louder from watching their battle. 

Yamaguchi's legs, arms, and lungs were on fire, and his heart felt like it was about to burst out of his chest, but he was feeling exhilarated. Somehow the other runner had pulled ahead and crossed only seconds ahead of him, but he was fine with that. He looked at the time when he crossed the finish line and didn't stop the tears as they fell from his eyes. 

He jogged the little ways past the back of the finish line where the rest of his team was waiting for him. As soon as he reached them his legs gave out and he dropped to the ground, gasping for air. There was a large grin on his face and he let out a wheezy laugh once he had calmed down his breathing somewhat. 

His coach gave him a bottle of water and he chugged it down as he began to stretch out his legs. His team looked at him expectantly, wanting to know how he did. 

Tadashi felt pride and pure happiness crash through his entire body as he said, "I beat my time by eleven seconds. My time is now twenty-one minutes and eleven seconds!" 

It only took a moment for the news to sink in before the entire team erupted into cheers. There were congratulatory hugs, high-fives, and shoulder claps. His coach watched them proudly. Tadashi smiled and laughed, cheering with them at his, and their own, achievements. 

Tadashi had dropped an overall of sixteen minutes and twenty-two seconds in his first season.

Maybe long distance running wasn't so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! It means a lot :) 
> 
> If you want to scream about haikyuu or just want to talk about anything you can find me on Twitter @/osamukinnie


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